Posts by John Smith 19

Re: wise-up...to website claims

Have you clocked their annual sales?

So not stretching the channel then?

@moiety

"The real problem with encryption is that it's such a wank to set up. And for an encrypted conversation, you need two people to have gone through the same (onerous) process using the same kit. That's why nobody bothers."

Funny you should say that. The whole "negotiating" a crypto method is called a protocol

That's the bit that has not had serious development over the years, which might explain why we use a few of them (like SSL) and have them handle the grunt work.

Except there does not really seem to be one for email (or VoIP). The problem is if it's not widespread you are stuffed and end up talking to yourself.

Re: Cross platform password standards

"a) strong hardware-based protection of the database - think HSMs or single-function appliances in a monitored datacentre that provides no admin or physical access to the database."

Well Intel seem to have taken this function into the microprocessor itself.

Of course you can't be sure how secure that is because what's on the chip is AFAIK a mystery to

everyone without an electron microscope.

It is about about as hard wired as you can get however.

@Spoonsinger & Cliff

As I pointed out up thread

In the spirit of El Reg headlines the story doesn't really have that much to do with "Steam Punk"

In fact, hardly anything.

Which is also in the spirit of El Reg headlines.

If you read up thread you'd have seen one of my motivations was the idea of a "post WWIII" computer system. One that would not be fried by EMP at any range, because it simply did not use electricity to begin with.

How does that basis work for you?

@yoursranter

"My top three sources for this were photography/cinematography, textiles, and printing:-)"

If you were aware of Eidiphor I'd have expected you to draw the comparison yourself.

Don't worry about it. I'm just a mine of odd bits and bobs of engineering knowledge and link things together.

Re: @yorksranter

"I sort-of remembered that Doug Engelbart's 1968 NLS demo used a projection system borrowed from NASA involving a surface coated with oil and an electron beam."

That would be an Eidiphor.

"I actually think vibration might be an even worse problem than temperature."

You could be right. Temperature control is small enclosure is pretty well understood. Obviously the wider the range you need to keep it in the easier, but I'd say a couple of degrees would not be too tough. When you want 1/100 of a C then things get tricky.

Vibration on the other hand, Not so easy.

IF electricity==true

That's pretty much the only ground rule.

It's not.

If it helps think of this as re-booting civilization.

For those wanting to go "home brew" semiconductors you'd have to go far to exceed the thin film and thick film transistors of various Sci Am contributors in "The Amateur Scientist" column back in the 60's and 70's.

Re: Ball bearing dot matrix

"I'd imagine you would not add or remove ball bearings from the grid, but just shunt one bearing between a '0' row and an '1' row per bit, with the 0 row not being visible to the user."

I sort of get your idea. The problem then becomes implementing some kind of X, Y mechanism so at the intersection a ball gets moved. Cycling through the X and Y ranges should be (relatively) straight forward.

@yorksranter

Neat. You have roughly described an opt/mechanical eidiphor projection TV system.

Plausible but getting the oil viscosity just right (and either limiting its changes with temperature or temperature compensating the system) will be tricky. Neatly you've got the "display" and the "memory" components combined.

A very steam punk solution.

"(note to SF writers: the sysadmins on this are going to be scarily tough women from Halifax.)"

Yes, I've seen how fit the women in textile factories tend to be. The phrase "fighting for your man" takes on a whole new meaning :) .

Re: Storage

"The mechanical data storage consisted of pins in brass tubes near the periphery of a wheel.The pins could be pushed up or down in the tubes mechanically, and were held in place by a spring and ball mechanism. In this system, each position on the wheel corresponded to a module in the process of assembly. If an assembly station failed,e.g.due to no component at that station, the pin was pushed down, and inhibited further operations at that station (by not pushing an actuator lever as it moved into position). The machinery was pneumatic."

OK I think I get roughly what you're talking about. 25 wheels for a line with 7 or 8 bit at each location (IE A row) and 90 locations IE 90 lines, to simplify the indexing problem. With even fairly loose tolerances (say 3-6 thou) this could still be made quite compact.

Note that the classic way to handle this would be a servo valve arrangement that has a sensitive detector (to sense the pin out or in) releasing fluid which then drives a 2nd more powerful valve.

That said a sufficiently sensitive system could probably get away with a single level sense/actuate approach..

It sounds like an adjustable version of the pins in a musical box.

As I noted above pneumatics and hydraulics are fine for this.

Any ideas for what the display would be?

Re: Note printers and punch cards were viable by the 1850s

"My father worked with some fluidic computers, albeit typically analog ones."

It's a term with several meanings. Some analog, some digital (in fact most are analog IIRC). There was a (brief) period where TTL logic gates (or more likely custom ASICs for hard wired logic) were just too expensive and fluidics were (in principal) a viable option.

"You'd really want to run any steam-punk fluidics with oil or air, rather than actual steam."

Absolutely correct. That said I have seen some designs for steam plant (Like the kind that powers warships) control elements which were fluidic controls. Also gas turbines, but more likely using oil.

Re: Note printers and punch cards were viable by the 1850s

"The FBW controllers you mention sound like a generation or three more advanced/expensive than those."

Old Popular Science I saw in a library, but I can't recall the dates on it. Otherwise you'll need to check http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/ as it'll be buried somewhere in the DoD archive, if they haven't sanitized them (like NASA did :( ).

"Wikipedia says the storage is a shift register, which in principle can be done with things like mercury delay lines and so on, or a collection of basic (fluidic) logic if preferred."

A fluidic shift register should work quite well. You don't have a fan in / fan out problem with that architecture. You just want to make really sure the system stays sealed. The 70psi air in industrial pneumatics makes a lot of noise when it leaks (At > 2 bar the flow can exceed the speed of sound with little or no nozzle) while liquids can be messy. The aircraft system was running at either 3000-4000psi.

Re: Bees are a bad example

"You're destroying my idea of strapping bees to the head of UAVs and let them do their beeish things to control the aircraft."

Well there was a project in the 50's for homing pigeons to used for ballistic missile guidance (back when inertial measurement packages weighed several hundred pounds.

Re: anyone think Wall-E when reading this?

"I just suddenly imagined lots of the UK filled with overweight people because it's just too darn convenient than walking"

You mean the UK is full of fit, glowingly healthy people who are not morbidly obese?

I did not know this.

Re: Not quite right.

"Or rolling them over like they do (allegedly) with sleeping cows..."

Nothing "alleged" about it in the US "cow tipping" is quite well known in the MidWest farming states*

*Where options for night time entertainment among the yoof are limited unless you're a)Look older than 15 b)Have fake ID c)Fancy you're sibling d)Have a crush on some of your livestock.

Re: Simples really

"Put yourself into their position: Sit behind their desk, learn a little of the "chore" that they have to perform and understand how you as an IT Professional can help alleviate the burden. Solving their problems might cause some new problems for you but it is usually short term."

Hmm. Empathy.

We've heard of that.